Stop closed 15% below bid - have I been scalped?

[rich2905]

Hopefully a quick question for someone more experienced than me - I had stop loss on 3UKS (3x short ftse) with Hargreaves Lansdown set at about 10% below the purchase price. The market never went anywhere near that level - at the time it was down 5% but I was filled at about 10% below that and a full 8% below the low of the day. Hargreaves have told me that the bid dropped even lower so I was filled - this seems highly unlikely and there is no record of my trade in the LSE trade data for that day - (04/12/20 13:39 997 filled at 776.178)

Is it possible that the spead could be so wide on an ETF that tracks FTSE? It must have been over 15% at that moment and shouldn't I be able to see the trade in the days data (its now 3 days).

I didn't lose much but it leaves a bad taste - and means I can't place anymore stops with them (at the very least). Any advice appreciated.

 

[tomorton]

Its a respected firm, I doubt there's deliberate fraud.

As for spreads, they can easily go to 10 or 20 times normal even on heavily traded instruments at times of fast price action. This won't show live or later on a chart - most charts show either the bid price or the mid-price: some charts can be set to show ask price, so historically you could look back and see the spread at a given time.

As for ETF's, I'm going to suppose these are not heavily traded so the spread could go wildly away from normal. Only one way to check and that's to watch bid/ask quotes at times of interest and note that happens.

Why ETF's anyway?

 

[rich2905]

Thanks tomorton -

Perhaps not deliberate but potentially inept (I've been with them for 20 years so it could be me!)

Yes, this is not heavily traded but it still seems a bit far off - does that mean I could put ridiculous bids against everything with low liquidity and hope for the best (retorical question).

Your question why ETF's is pertinent, firstly this is my SIPP and I often (to reasonable success) like to take short term positions in indicies and currencies (I should also note this has never happened before). Happy to hear of alternative strategies...

Thanks again.

 

[tomorton]

SIPP's give you a tax advantage but you can spreadbet these things and avoid tax altogether, its not even declarable. And I'm venturing to say that long-term bets against an index are bound to fail, in the long term, so why not take the short-term spreadbetting route for at least the FTSE etc.